Interpol Criticises Selebi Prosecution

Interpol criticises Selebi prosecution

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Sep 02 2009 11:16

Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble on Wednesday criticised the slow prosecution of corruption-accused former South African police chief Jackie Selebi.

“I’ve never seen happening what is happening in South Africa,” Noble told reporters at a Southern African Police Conference in Johannesburg.

He said he did not understand why it was taking so long to prosecute Selebi.

“If they have a case against him, charge him … give him the dignity he deserves. Mr Selebi is an honourable man,” said Noble.

He said accusing a head of any police organisation was ” a serious charge”.

“I sure hope that South Africa is still a country where people are innocent until proven guilty,” said Noble.

Selebi took special leave in 2007, when it emerged he was about to be charged with alleged corruption relating to his relationship with convicted drug-trafficker Glenn Agliotti.

Agliotti was also a co-accused in the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble, whose funds were allegedly used to pay Selebi.

Selebi faces two charges of corruption and one of defeating the ends of justice.

He made his first court appearance in February 2008 by agreement and without arrest, and his actual trial had been delayed by various applications and counter-applications relating to the investigation against him.

His trial was supposed to have started in April this year, but at his last court appearance in Johannesburg in May, he was angered by the delays.

The corruption trial was postponed to October 5.

Selebi served as Interpol president from 2004 until January 12 2008. He resigned after being suspended as police commissioner over the corruption allegations. — Sapa

Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-02-interpol-criticises-selebi-prosecution

South African Population Increases to 48.7 Million

SA population increases to 48,7m

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Sep 02 2009 12:07

South Africa’s population increased from 45,6-million in July 2002 to 48,7-million in July 2008, according to Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey.

Released on Tuesday, the survey — specifically designed to measure various aspects of the living circumstances of South African households — showed that the percentage of individuals attending an educational institution increased slightly from 33,1% to 34,4% between 2002 and 2008.

The percentage of children aged nought to four years who were attending an educational institution increased from 7,4% in 2002 to 16,9% in 2008.

The Pretoria-based agency found that the percentage of children aged five to nine years who were attending an educational institution increased from 79,9% in 2002 to 88,6% in 2008.

The percentage of five year olds attending educational institutions increased from 40,4% in 2002 to 63,3% in 2008, while the percentage of learners in the six-years age group increased from 70,9% to 87,1%, the agency said.

The percentage of individuals with no education (aged 20 and above) decreased from 10,3% (2002) to 8,8% (2008).

According to the survey, the percentage of individuals who completed Grade 12 (Matric/NSC) increased from 22,8% in 2002 to 24,6% in 2008.

Among persons aged seven to 24 years that were not attending an educational institution, lack of money for fees remained the most common reason for not attending.

Turning to health, Statistics SA said that during the month preceding the survey, 13,7% of the population were ill or injured.

“This is the highest reported since 2002 when only 11,3% were ill or injured.”

In the general population, 77,7% of those who were ill or injured consulted a health worker.

According to Statistics SA, the percentage of households countrywide with high satisfaction levels increased from 87,5% in 2002 to 89,1% in 2008.

More individuals who used public sector health care facilities were satisfied with the service they received in 2008 (91,2%) than in 2002 (81,1%).

Medical Aid coverage was lowest amongst blacks, with only 8,4% of individuals covered in 2008, and highest amongst the white population, with 68,5% coverage.

Turning to household assets, Statistics SA said there had been a marginal increase in the percentage of households that found themselves in informal dwellings (from 13,1% in 2002 to 13,4% in 2008).

“When households compared their current dwelling type (2008) with their own dwelling type of five years ago (2004), there has been some improvement,” Statistics SA said.

It added that in all provinces, considerably more households no longer found themselves in informal or traditional structures as their main dwelling.

“A continued growth in ownership of those occupying formal separate dwelling is observed — ownership increased from 62,6% in 2002 to 70,1% in 2008.”

Cellphone ownership more than doubled between 2002 and 2008 (from 37,6% to 79,1%, Statistics SA said while television ownership increased from 59,3% in 2002 to 72,4% in 2008. — Sapa

Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-02-sa-population-increases-to-487m

Survey Reveals US Fares Poorly in Child Welfare

Survey reveals US fares poorly in child welfare

GREG KELLER | PARIS, FRANCE - Sep 02 2009 11:46

The United States (US) has some of the industrial world’s worst rates of infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and child poverty, even though it spends more per child than better-performing countries such as Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands, a new survey indicates.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based watchdog of industrialised nations, urged the United States to shift more of its public spending to its youngest children, under the age of six, to improve their health and educational performance.

The report, released on Tuesday, is called Doing Better for Children, and marks the first time the OECD has reported on child well-being within its 30-member countries.

The US spends an average of $140 000 per child, well over the OECD average of $125 000. But this spending is skewed heavily toward older children between 12 and 17, the survey showed.

US spending on children under the age of six, a period the OECD says is key to children’s future well-being, lags far behind that of other countries, amounting to only $20 000 per child on average compared to the organisation’s average of $30 000, according to the survey.

“A better balance of spending between the ‘Dora the Explorer’ years of early childhood and the teenage ‘Facebook’ years would help improve the health, education and well-being of all children in the long term,” the OECD said.

As a result, it says, infant mortality in the US is the fourth-worst in the OECD after Mexico, Turkey and Slovakia.

America’s 15-year-olds rank seventh from the bottom on the OECD’s measure of average educational achievement. Child poverty rates in the US are nearly double the organisation’s average, at 21,6% compared to 12,4%.

The rate of teen births in the US is three times the OECD average, with only Mexico recording a higher rate among OECD countries, the report said.

Timothy Smeeding, author of Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America’s Children in Comparative Perspective, said America’s troubles stem from a flawed mix of government spending and not enough help for the working poor.

“Most of what we spend is for health care, so there is less money to spend on income support programs, to keep the incomes of the poor up. We do spend highly on education — but it’s off the charts on health care,” he said.

Some European countries have public pre-schools and day care centres, for example.

“The parents in Europe aren’t as poor. They have universal health care, and it’s understood that you have access to health care without recrimination. They have children when they’re ready,” said Smeeding, who also heads the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“A lot of kids born in our country are accidents,” he said.

“Young women need to learn to wait to finish their education, not have a kid at 18 or 19. And it is these poor, unwed mothers having most of the babies in the US”

Among other OECD countries, France, Germany, Britain and Belgium spend more on their children than the US, while Switzerland, Ireland, Australia and Italy spend less, according to the survey.

The countries that spend the most on early childhood include Hungary, Finland and the Slovak Republic, which each devote well over a quarter of all childhood spending to children under the age of six.

Britain also spends more than the OECD average on its children, and like the US, devotes most of this spending to its older children between the ages of 12 and 17.

But Britain is plagued by high underage drinking and teenage pregnancy rates. British teen drunkenness, as measured by the number of 13 and 15-year-olds having been drunk at least twice, topped the charts at 33%, far above the OECD average of 20% and the 12% rate recorded in the US–Sapa

Associated Press Writer Rachel Kurowski in Paris contributed to this report

Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-09-02-survey-reveals-us-fares-poorly-in-child-welfare

Quote of the day

“Whilst the original Constitutional Treaty was technical, and correct, people didn’t read the Lisbon Treaty, they didn’t understand the first word about it. No real debate about the Lisbon Treaty could happen. This was a deliberate decision of the European Council”

- New EU Development Commissioner Karel de Gucht (replaced Louis Michel after he became an MEP in June)

(Hat-tip Conservative Home).

10:10: How Woking is really working

The 10:10 campaign wants businesses, individuals, organisations and educational bodies to cut their carbon emissions by 10% in a year. Here’s how Woking borough council did it
Duncan Graham-Rowe
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 09.30 BST
When it comes to reducing CO2 emissions in the public sector it’s hard to find any other organisation as progressive as Woking borough council. At a time when many organisations are still wondering where to begin Woking has nearly two decades of experience, having first commenced its climate change and sustainability initiatives as far back as 1992 following the Rio Earth summit.
Since then by 2008 it had successfully reduced its energy consumption by 31% and CO2 emissions by 29% of 1990 levels. And by generating much of its own energy, 2% of this now comes from renewable sources and 41% from sustainable means.
This was made possible because in 1999 Woking took the radical step of setting up its own utility company Thameswey Energy. This council-owned non-profit company is charged with providing sustainable energy to the council and other organisations within the Woking area, for example, through the use of combined heat and power (CHP) generators, photovoltaic (PV) solar farms (solar panels that generate electricity) and a fuel cell CHP facility. This is currently being tested as the power and heat source for the local swimming pool.
According John Thorp, managing director of Thameswey, at one stage Woking had 90% of all PV capacity in the UK, and currently has about 500 1KW peak PV cells spread out over 13 different locations. There is also a 1.3MW CHP facility in the centre of Woking, and 14 more across the borough. “We have our own hard-wired grid in the town centre,” says Thorp. This supplies electricity and heating to council buildings as well as hotels and leisure centres.
“Within the wider borough we have a virtual grid system with small CHP units in buildings outside the central business district,” says Thorp. Initially the idea was to sell excess energy back into the grid, but the amount private energy companies are willing to pay for it was so poor that the virtual grid was created to share this excess amongst council owned buildings.
It’s a sustainability drive that runs throughout the council, says Thorp, with movement detectors in all its buildings, to ensure lights aren’t left on, and waterless urinals in all the men’s toilets. Waste vehicles are powered by LNG gas and there is a big push to make council cars more efficient. “The council’s fleet of company cars have upper limits on the CO2 they produce,” says Thorp. Currently this is 160g of CO2 per kilometre, but this will soon go down further to 130g CO2/km.
Similarly the town’s car parks, which are all council owned, penalise polluting cars and reward cleaner ones, with a 25% additional levy placed on any annual season tickets for cars producing more 160g CO2/km and 25% less if it’s under 130g CO2/km, while electric vehicles get to park for free. And all of this is monitored by a licence plate recognition system.
And thanks to a deal struck with a car hire company in the town centre, which allows low-carbon cars to be hired on an hourly basis, employees are encouraged to leave their cars at home. Instead a network of dedicated cycle paths is designed to make it easier to cycle to work by ensuring that no one is ever more than 750 metres away from a bike lane, a measure that recently earned the council a £2m Cycle Town grant.
Indeed this sort of achievement, along with the financial benefits it can bring, is also helping to drive Woking’s sustainability initiatives, says Thorpe. In the first year the council was able to save £250,000. After that, he says, there was no looking back.
CO2 reductions on 1990 levels
Energy – 31%
Electricity – Not known
Transport – Not known
Measures
Combined heating and power stations, photovoltaics and fuel cells. Light sensors, waterless urinals and low-carbon vehicle reward schemes. Bike lanes and hire cars that can be rented by the hour.

U.S. Doles Out Grants for Energy Projects

By RUSSELL GOLD
The U.S. government handed out $502 million in grants for a dozen wind- and solar-power projects from Maine to South Texas, the first round in a new subsidy program designed to spur renewable-energy investment.
The program appears to be accomplishing two of the Obama administration’s goals: producing employment and encouraging renewable-energy development. The approved energy projects have created about 2,000 jobs and capacity to generate 850 megawatts of clean electricity, enough for nearly 500,000 homes.
But while the wind farms and solar installations are in the U.S., the profits from these projects are flowing mainly to European companies and developers owned by private-equity investors.
Iberdrola SA, the Spanish wind-power giant, was awarded $294 million for five projects. Spokesman Keith Grant said the grants are “crucial to pushing ahead” with U.S. wind projects.
Horizon Wind Energy, the U.S. unit of Energias de Portugal SA, received $47.7 million for an Oregon wind farm.
Other recipients included First Wind Energy Holdings LLC, a company backed by private-equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners and hedge fund D.E. Shaw. It received three grants totaling $74 million for wind farms in New York and Maine.
Michael Alvarez, First Wind’s president and chief operating officer, pledged to use the grants to invest in additional projects. “We expect these grants will have a strong stimulative effect — not just for First Wind, but for the industry overall,” he said.
EverPower Wind Holdings Inc. received a $42.2 million grant for a wind farm in Pennsylvania. “In order to make wind power economical, it requires a tax subsidy,” said Jim Spencer, chief executive of EverPower, in which British private-equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners recently bought a controlling stake.
Mr. Spencer said the project stalled last year when many of the traditional investors in wind, such as Lehman Brothers Holdings, Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley, were tossed by market turmoil and the recession.
The program has no cap and government officials pledged to award grants to all qualified applicants through 2011.
Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com

Royal Society warns climate engineering ‘could cause disaster’

Giant engineering schemes to reflect sunlight or suck carbon dioxide from the air could be the only way to save the Earth from runaway global warming, according to a group of leading scientists. But they say that these schemes could have their own catastrophic consequences, such as disrupting rainfall patterns, and should be deployed only as a last resort if attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail.
The Royal Society, a fellowship of 1,400 of the world’s most eminent scientists, published a report yesterday on the feasibility and possible dangers of technologies for cooling down the Earth, known as geoengineering. The ideas include artificial trees that draw CO2 from the air and mimicking volcanoes by spraying sulphate particles a few miles above the Earth to deflect the Sun’s rays. The most far-fetched would would be to launch trillions of small mirrors into space to act as a sunshield.
A far cheaper solution would be a fleet of 1,500 ships that would suck up seawater and spray it out of tall funnels to create sun-reflecting clouds. However, the report said that these clouds could disrupt rainfall patterns and result in mass starvation in countries dependent on the monsoon.
The panel of 12 scientists who produced the report concluded that all these approaches were theoretically possible and, despite the potential side-effects, should be explored with a view to holding trials.
They called for a £100 million annual global research fund to study geoengineering technologies and said that Britain should contribute £10 million a year, ten times the amount being spent now on such research.
Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the panel, said: “It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions we are heading for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases.
“Our research found that some geoengineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and eco-systems — yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them. Geo- engineering and its consequences are the price we have to pay for failure to act on climate change.”
Professor Shepherd, Fellow in Earth System Science at the University of Southampton, admitted that there was a risk that the report would be exploited by fossil fuel companies, which might use it to argue that there was an alternative to cutting CO2 emissions.
But he said that it was better to start a thorough research programme now rather than wait until the start of rapid climate change, when the world would have no time to test solutions before deploying them.
Professor Shepherd added that he had no firm opinion on how likely it was that the world would need some form of geoengineering. “My opinion ranges from maybe to possibly to probably, depending on what I had for breakfast.”
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution in the United States and a member of the panel, said: “We should spend 99 per cent of our effort on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and 1 per cent on this insurance policy \. We need to understand what our options are.”
The report said that an international body, possibly the United Nations, would need to oversee geoengineering projects because they would have impacts far beyond national boundaries. An international compensation scheme would also be needed to help those adversely affected by any project.
Professor John Beddington, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, endorsed the report’s call for more research into geoengineering. He said: “These are part of the armoury of dealing with what is an enormously difficult global problem.” But he added that it was “too early to say” whether trials should be approved.

UN: Rich countries will suffer unless they help poor on climate change

• £300bn needed by poor nations to tackle carbon emissions• Failure to give could reduce world gross product by 20%
Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 17.31 BST
The world’s rich countries need to embark on a huge transfer of funds to developing countries in order for both groups to grow richer and reduce their carbon emissions significantly, a United Nations report urges today.
Delaying spending on mitigating climate change in the developing world “runs the real danger of locking in dirtier investments for several more decades”, says the annual survey from the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).
Ahead of this weekend’s meeting of G20 finance ministers in London, the report estimates that developed countries need immediately to transfer around 1% of world gross product (WGP), or $500-600bn (£300-370bn), to poor countries.
Carrying on with business as usual, or making only minor changes, could lose 20% of WGP so doing nothing would be an expensive mistake, it argues.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon says the report “makes the case for meeting both the climate challenge and the development challenge by recognising the links between the two and proceeding along low-emissions, high-growth pathways”.
The report adds, using unusually strong language, that “by any measure, the amounts currently promised for meeting the climate challenge in the near term are woefully inadequate”.
It continues: “The failure of wealthy countries to honour long-standing commitments of international support for poverty reduction and adequate transfers of resources and technology remains the single biggest obstacle to meeting the climate change challenge.”
The survey estimates that about $21bn (£13bn) in official development funding is set aside to addressing climate change, mostly for fighting problems such as drought or flooding. The total amount of climate financing that is required is a large multiple of that figure, it says.
“If the international community is serious about a ‘global new deal’, it should be just as serious about committing resources on the same scale as was needed to tackle the financial crisis and defeat political extremism.”
The report challenges the thinking that the climate problem can simply be addressed by across-the-board emission cuts by all countries or by relying exclusively on market-based solutions to generate the required investments. Its central point is that developing countries can only make a meaningful contribution tocombating climate change if their economies continue to grow strongly.
In turn that would require satisfying the growing energy needs of developing countries, which are projected to double that of the developed world over the coming decades.
“This raises the question for climate change negotiators of how poor countries can pursue low-emissions, high-growth development,” it says, with an eye on the Copenhagen climate change conference in December.
The report argues that the technologies that would allow developing countries to switch to a sustainable development path do exist. These include low-energy buildings, new drought-resistant crop strains and more advanced primary renewables.
But they are often prohibitively expensive and, the report says, such a transformation would require “a level of international support and solidarity rarely mustered outside a wartime setting”.
Poor countries, the report says, are facing “vastly more daunting challenges than those confronting developed countries and in a far more constrained environment”.
Economic growth remains a priority for them, not only to reduce poverty but also to bring about a gradual narrowing of the huge income differentials with wealthy countries.
“The idea of freezing the current level of global inequality over the next half century or more (as the world goes about trying to solve the climate problem) is economically, politically and ethically unacceptable,” the report says.
The study’s authors believe that they could be pushing on a door that is starting to open with world policymakers becoming increasingly aware of the dangers posed by rapid climate change.
Professor Nicholas Stern, who carried out a seminal study into the economics of climate change three years ago, recently published a book arguing for speedier action on a bigger scale than before.

10:10 launch attracts campaigners, celebs and a public eager for change

Director Mike Figgis, author Sarah Waters, and chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are among those there to sign up
Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 16.48 BST
London’s Tate Modern today saw the launch of the 10:10 campaign, which is supported by the Guardian and asks individuals and organisations to sign up to cutting their carbon footprint by 10% during 2010. Activists, film stars and artists at the event included Timecode director Mike Figgis, author Sarah Waters, chef and presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.
Claire Haviland-Webster, a teacher from Brighton who had travelled after reading about the campaign in the Guardian, was first in the queue with her 10-year-old daughter Lauren. She said: “I’m 100% behind the campaign’s cause. I think it’s really good when something has a timeline, because it gives it a better chance of completion. At home we’re already quite green: we’ve started growing veg, we only have one car as a family, we don’t fly, we recycle and we compost. Rather than just achieving my 10% domestically I’ll be looking to save it by influencing my school and my daughter’s school - making sure we photocopy less, wear jumpers when it’s cold and turn the lights off. We have to be as influential as we can.”
Hundreds of people queued through the old power station’s turbine hall waiting patiently for a chance to make their 10% pledge. Around them, scores of pink T-shirted volunteers explained the importance of the campaign, while video crews filmed roaming versions of the 10:10 logo and photographers captured celebrities on the turbine hall bridge.
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of civil rights group Liberty, said at the launch: “I was persuaded to sign up by my seven-year-old son. He was unstoppable and said I should be making an effort and that, if I did, maybe Liberty members would too. I don’t know a lot about the climate change issue and don’t hold myself up as a paragon of virtue, but I do hope to do the basics for 10:10: I’ll be looking at changing my windows, lights and appliances to save energy.”
Artist Bob Smith said this afternoon: “It’s an important political movement and a good idea to find people who will reduce their emissions by 2010. I think a night in the cells would be good for people who drive a 4×4.”
Attendees were given free “campaign wristband”-style tags made from the scrap metal of a retired Boeing 747, and the first 1,000 members of the public received a free glass of champagne to reward them for signing up. The audience also enjoyed free performances by folk outfit Stornoway and Sheffield’s indie rock act Reverend and the Makers.
The 10:10 project, which hopes to replicate the grassroots success of the Make Poverty History campaign, is led by Franny Armstrong, director of this year’s eco-documentary The Age of Stupid. Armstrong said: “After every screening of The Age of Stupid people came up to me and asked what they could do. I was saying very generic stuff and I thought we needed a better ‘here’s what you can do’. Hence 10:10.”
Armstrong also hopes the campaign will put pressure on the UK government to pledge a 10% cut in the UK’s emissions during 2010, and even influence critical climate change negotiations on a global treaty in Copenhagen in December. She said: “Once we’ve got a critical mass of support we will go to the government and say the people of Britain are ready to cut by 10%, now we need you to move. If Ed Miliband could go to Copenhagen and say Britain is going to step forward and start cutting as quickly as the science demands, that could potentially break the deadlock in the international negotiations.” She argues that for most individuals, making a 10% cut will be relatively easy. A 10% cut in 2010 represents the level of reduction scientists say is needed to have a good chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
The campaign has attracted a coalition of public figures and companies, from Tottenham Hotspur, energy company EDF, the Guardian and online supermarket Ocado to chef Delia Smith, DJ Sara Cox, film stars Colin Firth and Samantha Morton, author Ian McEwan, former London mayor Ken Livingstone and economist Nicholas Stern. Artists include Anish Kapoor, who has created an original artwork for the cover of today’s G2 in the Guardian.
Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, said: “The Guardian is backing 10:10 because it offers us a way to take small actions that together add up to something meaningful and significant.”
Although the campaign has been widely praised, it has also attracted some criticism. Environmentalist George Monbiot disagreed with 10:10’s decision to allow companies to reduce their carbon intensity rather than their absolute emissions, while Brian Hoskins, who sits on the government’s climate change committee, said it would be “problematic” for the UK as a whole to cut emissions by 10% in 2010.
There are a number of ways to get involved in the 10:10 campaign online:
• Sign up on 10:10’s site
• Post a photo on our Flickr gallery
• Make a pledge – tell the world how you’re going to save your 10%
• Find out how to cut your footprint by 10%
• Ask our green living experts for tips and advice
• Tweet about it with the hashtag #1010

10:10 – our chance to save the world

The 10:10 campaign is our opportunity to make the first move and get on with solving the problem of climate change

Franny Armstrong
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 14.08 BST
All the talking, all the documentaries, all the international negotiations have resulted in a net achievement of less than nothing: global emissions just keep going up and up.
As Pete Postlethwaite’s character says in our, er, documentary, The Age of Stupid, “We wouldn’t be the first life form to wipe itself out. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly.” And there’s the crux of it. We are the most intelligent creature ever to evolve. The first to understand how the overstretching resources to extinction pathway works and the first with the potential to use our big brains to jump off that pathway before it’s too late.
To maximise our chances of preventing runaway climate change, we must quickly and massively cut global emissions. To quickly and massively cut global emissions we need a binding international treaty and the last chance we have to get that treaty within the timescale of the physics of the planet is the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December this year. Hence the “most important meeting in human history” moniker.
Clearly the treaty isn’t just made up on the spot, they’ve been working on it for years. The best deal currently on the table is that from the EU, which calls for a 30% reduction by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). If this deal were to be accepted (which is a very big if, given that Japan argues for 8%, Australia for 5% and America for between 0%-6%) and if the emission cuts were then carried out (which is an even bigger if), this would give us about a 50/50 chance of not hitting the dreaded two degrees. Two degrees is where we trigger runaway climate change: two leads to three, three to four, four to five, five to six … by which time it’s about over for life on Earth.
In other words, our elected leaders are giving us – at best – a coinflip chance of avoiding catastrophe. It is hard to imagine a more total failing of our political system. Imagine if they were standing at a plane door … “Come on citizens, get on this plane, 50/50 chance of a safe landing … “
All of which means that we non-politician human beings who depend on the climate remaining habitable had best jump into action.
Here’s the plan: if you’re in London, come down to Tate Modern between 4pm and 7pm today to sign up to the new 10:10 campaign. If you’re not in London, sign up at www.1010uk.org. The first 1,000 people get a free glass of champagne and the first 3,000 get a free 10:10 tag (we bought a famous old 747 and recycled it into thousands of cute badges – think Make Poverty History’s white wristband). There’ll also be speeches and live music from Stornoway and Reverend & The Makers.
By signing up to 10:10, you will commit yourself, your school, your hospital, your church, your business, your whatever to cut 10% of your emissions next year. Which is easy. It’s at the level of changing lightbulbs, turning down heating, driving a bit less and maybe sticking in some (free) insulation. Four of the big six energy companies have already signed up to help their customers cut their energy usage over the course of the year. In fact, one of the first inklings we had of the 10:10 magic was when groups from E.ON to the Women’s Institute, to Spurs to the Science Museum started rushing to sign up before we’d barely formulated the plan.
As well as being achieveable for the vast majority of the population, 10% in one year is the kind of cut the science tells us we need.
Once we have a sizeable chunk of the UK signed up, then the next step is to challenge the government to follow suit: to commit to reduce the whole country’s emissions by 10% in 2010. If one of the biggest historical culprits – that’s us – stepped forward and made the first move, it just might change the outcome at Copenhagen. The international talks have long been hamstrung by “It’s all China’s fault” or “We’re not playing if America’s not playing”, and so the UK going 10:10 may break the deadlock.
One week after the talks finish – whatever the outcome – on 1 January 2010 the people of Britain will start getting on with solving the problem, supported by the Energy Saving Trust, the Carbon Trust and tonnes of online resources. Everyone who successfully completes their 10% cut should find themselves richer (for saving money on their energy bills), fitter (for the walking and cycling which replaced some car trips) and with more friends (the colleagues they car-pooled with or the neighbours who helped walk all the kids to school). More importantly, everyone who takes part will know that their efforts are part of the nationwide effort to prevent catastrophe.
I was born in the early 70s as part of the MTV generation who were told by a million adverts that the point of our existence was to shop more. Daunting though the task ahead may be, I feel enormously inspired and quite relieved that it turns out that we have something important to do. The people who came before us didn’t know about climate change and the ones who come after will be powerless to stop it. So it’s down to us. Other generations came together to overturn slavery or end apartheid or win the vote for women. There is nothing intrinsincally more useless about our generation and there is no doubt about what we have to do. The only question which remains is whether or not we give it a go.